Page 1 of 2 Next >>In 1941 work started on Maserati's first road car, which eventually resulted in the 1500 Gran Turismo, known internally as the Tipo A6. This change in strategy was instigated by the company's new owners, the Orsi family, who realised there was no viable future for Maserati as a specialist racing car manufacturer. Launched in 1946, the 1500 Gran Turismo was a reasonable success with 61 examples built over a five year period. It was replaced by a two-litre version (Tipo A6G), which failed to attract the same level of interest for a variety of reasons.

After a three year hiatus, Maserati returned to the road car market with a heavily revised version of the 2000 Gran Turismo built in small numbers in 1950 and 1951. Known internally as the Tipo A6G54, the new road car retained its official type-name 2000 Gran Turismo. The prototype of the grand tourer was launched at the Paris Motor Show in the fall of 1954. Clothed by Frua with a spectacular coupe body, finished in white, the show car combined an earlier competition chassis with the all-new Tipo A6G54 engine developed specifically for the new road car.

The Tipo A6G54 two-litre straight six was constructed entirely from aluminium and featured wet-sump lubrication. The single biggest improvement compared to the earlier road car engines was the use of a twin-cam head. This resulted in a very welcome hike in power to 150 bhp from the Tipo A6G's modest 100 bhp. The two camshafts were driven by chains, which was a much simpler solution than the gears used on the competition version of the engine. Like most Maserati engines of the day, the Tipo A6G54 was available with, optional and later standard, twin-spark ignition. Page 1 of 2 Next >>